This invention relates to processes and apparatuses for baking tortilla chips, and particularly to processes and apparatuses that enable a tortilla chip to be baked, while giving it the appearance and taste of having been fried.
Tortilla chips ordinarily are cooked in one of two ways. One conventional way is simply to bake them at relatively low temperature in a gas fired oven. When cooked in this manner, their appearance is relatively uniform and they may have a relatively low fat content. The other conventional way of cooking tortilla chips is to heat them for about one minute in about 275 degrees Fahrenheit in a gas oven having a conveyer whose effective length is about twenty-five feet, and then dropping them into a deep frying oil. While the latter process produces a somewhat less uniform appearance, brown spots or "toast points" sometimes being produced on the chips, their appearance is still essentially uniform and this process results in a chip with a relatively high fat content.
It is desirable to produce chips with a low fat content, yet which have toast points and which taste like they have been toasted, since these have been found to have appearance and taste characteristics that appeal to consumers. One approach to preparing edible products from a farinaceous dough which are fried or baked, but which have toast points, is described in Wisdom et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,198. That patent describes a process whereby dough formed into a thin layer is selectively or locally toasted to a golden brown or black color without effecting the remaining surface of the dough significantly by contacting the dough with a heated metal object which only touches the intended localized area of the dough, such as a pattern on the periphery of a drum which rolls on the dough as it passes beneath the drum on a conveyer or another drum, or by passing a sheet of dough over a conveyor having upright rod extensions, the tips of which are electrically heated and contact the dough to effect the toasting. However, in that process the dough pieces are preconditioned, either before or after selective toasting, to remove a portion of the moisture, as by use of a heated oven prior to applying the metal object to the chips. While this process produces an advantage over conventional processes, it results in a relatively uniform pattern of toast points, which appears artificial, and requires unnecessary steps and equipment.
It would be desirable to have a process and apparatus for cooking tortilla baked chip products having toast points wherein the toast points appear to be random, so that the chips appear as though they had been fried yet have a low fat content, and which minimize the steps and equipment required to accomplish that result.